FINANCE CAPITAL AND WORLD ECONOMY: THE REAL FAULTLINES
SHIFT FROM WAGES TO SURPLUS DEPRESSES DEMAND
2021-10-08 11:24
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The period of neo-liberalism witnesses an increase in the share of economic surplus in total output both in individual countries and also for the world as a whole. This is because the “opening” up of the economy to freer trade in goods and services leads to a rapid introduction of structural-cum-technological change, which, because of its labour-displacing character, keeps down the growth rate of employment, to even below the natural growth-rate of the work-force. The resulting increase in the relative size of the reserve army of labour restrains the level of real wages everywhere, even as labour productivity grows massively, causing a rise in the share of economic surplus.